Adrianne Wortzel and StudioBlue at the Cooper Union
for the Advancement of Science and Art, announce the June 8 launch of Eliza
Redux. Eliza Redux
features a physical robot, which, having passed the Turing test with flying
colors, thinks it is a human psychoanalyst and persists in offering online
pseudo- psychoanalytic sessions. Please help us to bring this robot to its
sensors. Peer consultation is available in the Reception Area as well as
archived sessions and other reference materials.

This human-robot interaction project is inspired by Joseph Weizenbaum's
1966 M.I.T. computer program ELIZA, which allowed for text-based human
conversation with a computer playing the role of a psychotherapist. Weizenbaum's
program was not meant to demonstrate intelligence, but to engage the user
emotionally and intellectually in a simulation of artificial intelligence.
In spite of the transparency of the program's lack of intelligence, lab
personnel were unable, or unwilling, to distinguish the machine from a
human psychotherapist and became so dependent upon ELIZA for "therapeutic
sessions" that eventually Weizenbaum had to withdraw its use.

ADRIANNE
WORTZEL's work explores historical and
cultural perspectives in both physical and virtual networked environments
as venues for interactive robotic and telerobotic installations, performance
productions and texts. Recent projects have been made possible by funding
from the PSC-CUNY Research Foundation, a National Science Foundation Award
for developing robotics and theater, and a Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance
Art Award. Wortzel is a Professor of Communication Design at New York City
College of Technology/CUNY as well as a member of the doctoral faculty of
the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate Program of the Graduate
Center. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art where she is also the
Founding Director of StudioBlue, a fully equipped arena for creating telerobotic performance productions.